


Sons and Daughters

by GalahadWilder



Category: Batfamily - Fandom, Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Ace Damian Wayne, Asexual Character, Asexual Damian Wayne, Asexuality, Trans Damian Wayne, transgender Damian wayne, transgender character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-12 01:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15328905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalahadWilder/pseuds/GalahadWilder
Summary: After meeting his alternate universe sister Helena, Damian Wayne has an Earth-shattering realization about himself. But what does it mean? And who is he going to become?





	Sons and Daughters

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [blondes really do have more fun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15064919) by [suzukiblu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu). 



The first time Damian Wayne met Helena Wayne, his response was absolute fury. This girl from another dimension couldn’t possibly have been the blood of the bat—couldn’t possibly have been him. Everything about her was so familiar, and yet so... wrong! HE was the blood son. HE was the heir.

That rage disappeared when he discovered that she was not, in fact, his alternate, but rather Selina’s daughter, and thus no more related to him than his time-traveling idiot half-brother McGinnis. He already had a sister in the form of Cassandra; he could deal with another. It was just the thought of her being HIM that he couldn’t stand.

And yet... something in him, something he couldn’t quite understand... was disappointed.

***

There was much to admire about Helena Wayne, he discovered. She was skilled, nearly as skilled as he was, but she was a natural leader and comfortable in her own skin in a way he’d never been. He wondered how much of that came from growing up with Bruce and Selina instead of Talia and Ra’s; the former were much better parents than the latter, he’d come to understand. But even then, there was something different about the way she walked, the way she talked, the way she stood, something that reminded him of himself but wasn’t quite him. And every time he saw it, every time he saw himself in her, he felt a pang of... longing?

It wasn’t desire for her. Even if they weren’t siblings, Damian didn’t really have those kinds of feelings: he’d tested rigorously with Maya, and Raven, and Jon, but despite his rapidly advancing puberty no such desires ever appeared. He felt a certain kinship to Sherlock Holmes, the detective in those stories his father had introduced him to, who eschewed love entirely to focus on his craft. Damian would never admit it, but it helped him feel a little less alone.

***

It was meeting Miss Gordon’s roommate that made things begin to fall into place.

The two of them had come to the manor for the annual Wayne Christmas party, and Damian’s expert detective skills had led him to notice something was a bit off. Or rather, he’d accidentally barged in on Miss Yeoh using the toilet.

She was standing up.

He retreated quickly, stammering apologies for reasons he couldn’t quite comprehend, and ran to track down Barbara, his need to urinate completely forgotten.

“Gordon!” he hissed, pulling her aside. “Why is your roommate pretending to be a woman?”

Barbara looked at him in rage, then her expression cleared and she sighed. “Right, you wouldn’t know,” she said. “Alysia isn’t pretending. She’s a woman, but she was born with a man’s body.”

Damian’s eyebrows knitted together. “Is that... a thing that can happen? Was magic involved? A curse of some kind?”

Barbara shook her head with a soft grin. “No, no curse,” she replied. “Some women are just born with men’s bodies, and some men are born with women’s bodies.” She laid a hand on Damian’s shoulder. “It doesn’t make them any less the gender they are that they have the wrong body.”

Damian, for once, said absolutely nothing. Not even a grunt.

“You okay?” Gordon said.

Damian nodded, his lips shut tight.

***

Growing up, being female had been something... wrong. Something weak. Females, in his grandfather’s eyes, were not worthy of the position Damian was meant to inherit; only a male heir could be accepted, only a male heir could be trained, treated like a son. A daughter would have been cast aside, worthless.

He wondered if that was part of why he’d never considered it.

He took every opportunity he could to fight alongside Helena, now; she thought it was brother-sister bonding, but he had different motives. He’d realized that his initial hatred for her hadn’t been anger—it had been JEALOUSY. He’d wanted to BE her. He wanted to be—

He talked about it with Jon, first. He knew Jon would understand even if he didn’t.

“So... you think you might be a girl,” Jon said, as they sat on the edge of a rooftop in Star City. Far enough away from both of their home cities that neither of their fathers would overhear them.

“I understand the term is ‘transgender,’” Damian said. “And I’m... not certain. Not completely.” He gestured down at his torso. “But I find that I am... more comfortable with the thought of being Helena than I am with being myself.” He sighed. “I have begun to wonder if I should have been born a daughter instead of a son.”

“Like Danny,” Jon said through a mouthful of sandwich.

Damian looked at him, eyebrow cocked.

Jon swallowed. “Danny the Street,” he said. “From your brother’s Titans. He was born a girl before he became... you know... a street.”

Damian turned back to his gyro. “I remember Drake mentioning him, but not that part.”

They sat in silence for a full minute, eating their respective dinners, before Jon finally spoke again. “You haven’t told your family,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“I don’t even know if there’s anything to tell,” Damian said. “I’m not certain about any of this.”

“Well, if you do,” Jon said, “you’ve got me in your corner.” He raised his sandwich. “Cheers.”

Damian tapped his gyro against Jon’s sandwich, and they both went to take a bite. Then Jon spat. “Ugh!” he yelped. “You got gyro sauce on my sandwich!”

***

“Father?”

“Yes, habibi?” Bruce said, barely turning away from the computer.

“Habibi”—Arabic for “beloved.” But male only. Bruce was going out of his way to make him feel comfortable, and yet somehow, it made him feel worse.

“If you’d had a daughter,” Damian began, sitting down in the chair next to his father’s, “what would you have named her?”

Bruce paused. “I don’t know,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

Damian shrugged. “Something Jon said. He mentioned his parents would have named him Lucy if he’d been a girl and I became curious.”

“Hmm.” Bruce went back to typing. “Well, Helena is already taken, and I don’t think any daughter of mine would appreciate being called Martha,” he said. “Maybe Elizabeth. It was your grandmother’s middle name.”

Elizabeth. Damian rolled the name around in his head, silently on his tongue. He found he rather liked it.

Bruce stopped typing. “Damian,” he said.

Damian’s head snapped up. “Yes, Father?”

“You know the only thing I have ever wanted for my children is to be happy.”

Damian swallowed. “Yes, Father.”

“And no matter who you become, or what you do, I will always be proud of you.”

Damian nodded. “Yes, Father.” A tear escaped down his cheek. “Thank you, Father.”

Bruce grunted and returned to his work.

***

Damian stared at himself in the mirror and imagined himself in another body, another name. “Elizabeth Wayne,” he said to himself. “Beth Wayne.”

He felt his lungs squeeze tight around his heart in an emotion he could only describe as happiness. He’d never been this happy—he’d never been ALLOWED to be this happy. He’d never allowed HIMSELF to—

No. SHE’d never. She.

Beth Wayne.

It felt right.

***

“I have an announcement to make,” she said, the next time the whole family managed to gather for dinner. Even Todd was there, having managed to shake the police for the evening and left Bizarro in the capable hands of his Amazon friend.

“What’s up?” Grayson said, absentmindedly, shoveling mashed potatoes onto his plate.

“I believe that I would...” She took a deep breath. “I would prefer it, from now on, if you all referred to me as Beth instead of Damian.”

The entire room fell silent.

Todd moved first, stabbing his knife point-first into the table and charging over the tabletop with a storm in his eyes. For a moment, Beth thought he was going to attack her, but instead he gathered her up in his arms, pressing her tight against his chest. “Of course, Beth,” he whispered.

“Hey!” Beth snapped, smacking him on the arm. “I still don’t like you touching me.”

Todd released her and stepped back, his gaze sheepish, and Beth’s eyes swept over the rest of his family. Grayson was crying, wearing a smile as wide as his face; Cain had her usual inscrutable smile, but she seemed... proud of her. Drake’s expression was unchanged, his mouth still full of corn, but he gave a thumbs-up and Beth felt a surge of pride. Thomas seemed to be having difficulty finding his words, wanting to say something supportive but unsure of what.

Beth turned to her father. “Is that all right?” she said.

Bruce smiled, and a single tear trailed down his cheek. “It’s more than all right,” he said. “Habibti.”

Beloved. But now, it acknowledged her as what she was, and Beth felt her heart soar—she’d never felt happier.

***

“Listen, if anyone at school gives you shit about it, you come to me,” Drake said. “I’ll make sure they regret it.”

Beth waved him off. “I’ll be fine, Tim,” she said. “I was raised by assassins. I don’t fear children.”

“All right.” Tim looked down. “And you’re sure you’re okay?”

“Why would I not be?”

“Well...” he said. “You called me Tim.”

Beth cocked an eyebrow. “So I did,” she said. “Maybe I’m finally fitting in around here.”

Tim smiled. “Stephanie’s old skirt fit?”

Beth nodded. “I’ll have to get one for myself, of course,” she said, feeling the swish of Gotham Academy’s uniform skirt around her legs. “But this will do for now.”

Of course, she had a lot of work to do on the Robin suit when she got home as well.

**Author's Note:**

> I want to write a second chapter but the only thing I can think of for it is Beth as Robin confronting her mother and grandfather, and... I feel like, as a cis person, that is a BAD idea for me to write because I won’t get it and might trigger some bad memories for some of my readers. Does anyone want to help me out with that?


End file.
